Getaway Special Program

OBS: NASA's Getaway Special Program, officially known as the Small Self-Contained Payloads Program, offers interested individuals of groups opportunities to fly small experiments aboard the space shuttle. To assure that diverse groups have access to space, NASA rotates payload assignments among three major categories of users: educational, foreign and commercial, and U.S. government. Since the program first announced in the fall of 1976, payloads have been reserved by foreign governments and individuals; U.S. industrialists, foundations, high schools, colleges and universities; professional societies; service clubs; and many others. Although persons and groups involved in space research have obtained many of the reservations, a large number of spaces have been reserved by persons and organizations outside the space community.